The Testament of the Clock

Four village men staggered beneath the weight of the tall clock as they descended from the manor’s attic.

“Gently now!” Professor Edward Darkmoor called as they navigated the staircase. Mortensen directed the procession. That morning they had discovered the timepiece in the attic’s farthest corner, shrouded in burlap and cobwebs. Edward could not fathom why Uncle Bram had hidden such a magnificent piece. The library had begged for a tall clock since his arrival eight weeks prior to the old brick Georgian manor.

“There… perfect!” Edward exclaimed as they positioned it against the library wall.

“Splendid work!”

“The mechanism appears sound,” Mortensen said. “Unless you require anything further, I should return home.”

“No, that will be all.” With a respectful nod, the handyman departed, leaving Edward to the ancestral silence.

As twilight encroached, he stoked the dying embers with fresh coal and kindled the oil lamps one by one. The clock’s measured heartbeat, tick-tock, tick-tock, filled the void. Though he’d inhabited this manor for a few weeks, only now with the clock’s voice did the old walls seem to embrace him.

Edward settled into the wingback chair with his customary comforts: a glass of brandy, his pipe, and a book in his hand. Each quarter-hour brought the clock’s chime and warmed him nearly as much as the fire.

That night, Edward slept soundly until dawn’s light streamed through his bedchamber windows. His daylight hours passed in combat with the estate’s wild gardens. But evenings… ah, evenings were sacred. When laborers departed and silence descended, Edward found solace before the library hearth with brandy, literature, and the clock’s rhythmic heartbeat.

This particular night, as the hour hand swept toward ten, the expected melodious chime failed to materialize. Instead, a discordant noise emerged, neither animal nor human, but unsettlingly close to both. Edward approached the tall case, unlatched its door, and peered inside. Nothing appeared disturbed. Perhaps a rodent had nested in the mechanism? Yet for the remainder of the night, the clock performed flawlessly.

The following day Edward dismissed the incident as imagination, perhaps a nocturnal bird’s cry misheard through the window. But when darkness again claimed the estate and ten o’clock approached, Edward watched vigilantly. The moment the hand touched twelve, the chime mechanism engaged, producing not musical notes but that same garbled sound, now unmistakably resembling human speech. Then silence returned, leaving only the familiar tick-tock. Edward shook his head violently. Surely his mind played tricks; clocks did not speak.

That night, Edward’s was haunted by nightmares of pursuit by the clock’s disembodied voice. Morning brought no relief, and as dusk settled over the manor, he contemplated retreating to his bedchamber with his volume. The library’s comfort beckoned him nonetheless. As the hands crept toward ten, his pulse quickened to match the pendulum’s swing. Perspiration beaded cold against his skin.

When the mechanism engaged, no melody emerged… only a guttural “Mrs. Dal...” before dissolving into unintelligible sounds. His blood ran cold. Had the timepiece spoken a name? Impossible! He leapt to his feet, sending his book tumbling across the carpet. Abandoning the still-burning lamps, he seized a brandy bottle and fled upstairs. There he wedged a chair beneath his doorknob before collapsing into a seat across the room, drinking deeply until blessed numbness overtook him.

Rain lashed against the windows the following day, confining him within the manor’s walls. Though he busied himself with ledgers and correspondence, one persistent question gnawed at him: had Uncle Bram banished the clock to the attic for this very reason?

As night fell again, Edward sequestered himself in his bedchamber with literature and spirits, determined to avoid the library entirely. Yet as his travel clock’s hands approached ten, curiosity consumed him. Ten minutes remained.

Cinching his dressing gown about his slender frame, he descended the staircase with trembling lamp held aloft. At the library threshold he halted, unable to venture further. His gaze fixed upon the towering case while his mind pleaded silently: “Just chime... please, just chime.”

Instead, a voice emanated from the clock, spectral and hollow. “Mrs. Devlin... Tuesday...”

Edward clutched the doorframe. The words repeated, unmistakable in the silence of the library.

“Mrs. Devlin... Tuesday...”

His mouth went dry. Who in God’s name was Mrs. Devlin? He stumbled backward, nearly upsetting a side table. Clocks did not speak… this was madness. The village doctor would provide a rational explanation.

The following afternoon found Edward returning from Dr. Blackwood’s cottage with several carefully folded paper packets of Laudanum. “Overwork and fatigue,” the physician had diagnosed, recommending one draft nightly. As Edward had turned to leave, he paused at the threshold.

“I wonder, Doctor, who might Mrs. Devlin be?”

“The vicar’s wife, Georgiana,” the doctor replied. “Charming woman. The parish adores her.”

That evening, Edward combined the Laudanum with a generous measure of brandy. By ten o’clock, blessed unconsciousness claimed him. For several nights thereafter, he maintained this ritual, sleeping through the hour when the clock might speak its nonsense.

On Tuesday evening, he swallowed his final draft. The next morning, he ventured again to the doctor’s residence for his refill. The physician handed him the packets with a grave expression.

“Dreadful affair at the vicarage yesterday,” Dr. Blackwood murmured.

Edward’s blood turned to ice. “I beg your pardon?”

“Mrs. Devlin. Tending her roses when that old larch tree toppled without warning. Crushed beneath it, poor soul. The vicar is inconsolable.”

The room tilted beneath Edward’s feet. Tuesday; the clock had said Tuesday. Impossible coincidence, surely. Yet the words echoed in his mind with terrible clarity: “Mrs. Devlin... Tuesday...”

Edward forsook his evening draft and made his way to the library as the hands approached ten. He must witness the clock’s utterance once more, must confirm his suspicions. Perched upon the desk’s edge, he gnawed at his fingernails while his chest heaved with shallow, irregular breaths.

The hour struck, and from the clock came the ghastly pronouncement: “William Pine... Thursday...”

The morrow. This William Pine, who might he be?

Edward retreated hastily to his chambers, securing the door before swallowing his medicinal dose. The tincture soon calmed his racing pulse, his eyelids growing ponderous as consciousness began to slip away.

The following morning, Mortensen appeared well past his customary hour. “My deepest apologies for the delay, Professor. I’ve been assisting through the night with the conflagration at the Pine residence. We managed to rescue the lady and children, but I regret to inform you that Mr. Pine perished in the flames.”

The prophecy fulfilled… another soul claimed.

Throughout the day, his thoughts spiraled ceaselessly. Was the timepiece merely foretelling inevitable tragedies, or actively orchestrating them? Perhaps demonic forces were at work? A hereditary malediction? Or had reason abandoned him entirely? Surely a man of sound mind would dispose of such a malevolent object without delay.

That night, the clock chimed ten without issuing any prophecy. Edward stared, bewildered at the silence, until fifteen minutes later when the timepiece began to transform. The round dials twisted into watchful eyes, while below them, a mouth formed where the numeral six had been. The newly-formed lips parted.

“Come back tomorrow, professor,” the clock commanded.

Edward bolted from the library, his footfalls thundering down the corridor until he reached the entry door. His trembling fingers wrestled with the lock until the mechanism yielded. Outside in the night air, he collapsed onto the flagstones, emptying his stomach in violent heaves.

This abomination could not be endured. He must flee this cursed inheritance; perhaps even reduce it to ashes as fate had done to the Pine residence. Would flame purify the wickedness that seemed to permeate these ancestral walls?

Back in his chambers, Edward swallowed another draft and began frantically stuffing garments into his valise. The laudanum overtook him before he’d filled half the case. Morning found him contemplating his cowardice. The clock’s invitation echoed in his mind: “Come back tomorrow, professor.” He remained paralyzed between terror of staying and dread of departure; captive to his own fracturing sanity. His heat beat loudly in his chest, or was that just the ticking of the clock?

The clock struck ten as the wooden face emerged from shadows within the case. “Professor Darkmoor... Sunday,” it intoned, each syllable like a death knell.

Edward’s shoulders slumped beneath an invisible weight. His doom, pronounced by this infernal timepiece. Four days hence.

“Robert Mortensen... Saturday,” the clock continued, its voice colder than the grave.

With a strangled cry, Edward flung his brandy snifter. Crystal shattered against the case, sending liquor cascading down the clock face like amber tears. “Not Mortensen,” he whispered hoarsely.

Saturday dawned with dreadful inevitability. Mortensen moved about the house, casting wary glances at his employer’s haggard countenance. As dusk gathered, Edward accompanied him to the threshold, murmuring wishes for safe passage home. Mortensen paused, turned, then clutched suddenly at his breast. His complexion flushed crimson before draining to alabaster as he crumpled to the flagstones.

Edward knelt beside him, slapping the ashen cheeks to no avail. The stillness of death had already claimed him. Abandoning the body where it lay, Edward bolted toward the village, his labored breathing burning in his chest. The physician returned with him only to confirm what the clock had foretold. Mortensen, gone. And Edward himself marked for tomorrow’s reaping.

The church bells tolled half-past nine when Edward returned from delivering Robert’s earthly remains to his widow. “Apoplexy of the heart,” the doctor had pronounced with clinical detachment. “Rare in one so youthful.” Edward’s footfalls echoed through the empty corridors as he approached the library, each step bringing him closer to his appointed executioner.

As the tall case clock struck ten, the wooden visage materialized from the shadows, its features more defined than before, its voice resonating with newfound authority: “Professor Darkmoor... Tuesday.”

“Tuesday?” Edward’s voice cracked. “But you proclaimed Sunday as my hour of judgment!”

The timepiece offered no explanation, only the metronomic “tick-tock, tick-tock” filling the silence.

A reprieve, Edward thought bitterly. Two additional days of torment. Yet as resignation settled upon him like a shroud, the clock’s voice slithered forth again: “Professor, your existence has been most privileged. Does the name Emily Jade ever haunt your memories?”

“Emily Jade?” Edward’s blood ran cold. “What could you possibly know of her?”

“Everything, Professor. The child she carried within her womb. The butcher who promised to eliminate your... inconvenience. Her tears, her pleas for matrimony; both free to choose differently. Instead, you orchestrated her ruination. Exsanguination claimed her. Your hands, though absent, were no less stained with her blood.”

The clock continued its merciless assault: “Professor Darkmoor, paragon of respectability. Imagine the scandal should your neighbors discover the theft of eight hundred pounds sterling from the widow next door to your father; her entire worldly fortune.”

“Those funds secured my education!” Edward protested weakly. “She was elderly, infirm… what use had she for such wealth?”

“Education?” The clock’s voice dripped with contempt. “Or perhaps wagers at the gaming tables? What opinion did your father hold regarding your predilection for games of chance? Professor Darkmoor... Tuesday...”

“Silence!” Edward’s anguished cry reverberated through the library. “Damnable mechanism!” But the clock had retreated into its rhythmic cadence: “tick-tock, tick-tock...”

Edward stormed from the room, his parting words hanging venomously in the air: “Tuesday it shall be, then!”

The intervening days passed in torturous silence until Monday evening arrived. By ten o’clock, Edward had consumed nearly a full decanter of brandy when the wooden visage materialized once more.

“Ah, Professor,” it began with terrible intimacy. “I was reflecting upon your father’s final moments. What thoughts, I wonder, coursed through his mind as you pressed that pillow against his face? Hardly the dutiful son he boasted of to society. Few offspring possess such... resolve... to dispatch their own progenitor.”

“FALSEHOOD!” Edward roared, spittle flying from his lips.

“Come now, Edward,” the clock’s voice oozed with mock sympathy. “We both comprehend the reality. Do you persuade yourself it never transpired? That your hands didn’t commit the deed? Or that you didn’t discover his testament bequeathing the majority to your sisters while leaving you mere pittance; before consigning it so thoughtlessly to the flames?”

With a primal howl, Edward lunged toward the towering timepiece. His body collided with the wooden case, causing it to tilt backward before righting itself. Enraged beyond reason, he retreated and charged again, driving his shoulders against the mahogany exterior. The massive structure wobbled precariously, then pitched forward. As though time itself had slowed, Edward watched helplessly as eight feet of ornate craftsmanship descended upon him. The clock’s face contorted into a grotesque smile as it pronounced with terrible finality: “Professor Darkmoor... now!”

The End.